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Harriman, Tennessee
Harriman is a city in Roane County, Tennessee. The population of the city is 6,350, making it the largest in the county. Demographics As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the racial composition of the city is: 88.05% White (5,591) 8.14% Black or African American (517) 3.81% Other (242) 19.5% (1,238) of Harriman residents live below the poverty line. Theft rate statistics Harriman has low to average rates of Pokemon theft and murder. The city reported 2 Pokemon thefts in 2018, and averages 1.10 murders a year. Pokemon See the Roane County page for more info. Fun facts * Harriman was founded as a Temperance Town in 1889 by temperance movement activists led by New York-born minister and plant manager Frederick Gates. Seeking a land venture that could attract industrial and economic development while avoiding the vice-driven pitfalls of late 19th century company towns, Gates and fellow prohibitionists chartered the East Tennessee Land Company in May 1889. In subsequent months, the company acquired several hundred thousand acres of land around what is now Harriman, including the plantation of Union Army colonel and state senator, Robert K. Byrd. The company's early investors included 1888 Prohibition Party presidential candidate General Clinton B. Fisk, who served as the company's first president, Quaker Oats co-founder Ferdinand Schumacher, and publishers Isaac K. Funk and A. W. Wagnalls. The East Tennessee Land Company's plan was to purchase land, build a town based on prohibitionist and other reform movement principles, and establish subsidiary companies to attract industry. After a successful land auction in Harriman in 1890, the company established three subsidiaries: the East Tennessee Mining Company to administer the region's coal and iron extraction operations, the Harriman Coal & Iron Railroad Company to develop the local railroad system, and the Harriman Manufacturing Company to attract industries by providing start-up capital. To project its prosperity and advertise Harriman, the company built an imposing brick headquarters (now Harriman City Hall), with its four picturesque Norman towers, at the corner of Walden Avenue and Roane Street near the center of the new town. By 1892, several rolling mills, factories, and other businesses had relocated to Harriman. ** To help finance its early operations, the East Tennessee Land Company borrowed just over one million dollars from the Central Trust Company of New York. In late 1891, capital markets in the U.S. began to freeze, leading to the Panic of 1893. The East Tennessee Land Company, unable to pay the interest on its million-dollar loan, attempted a last-ditch stock sale to raise money to pay off the loan, but the sale failed. In November 1893, the company was forced into bankruptcy. * In spite of the East Tennessee Land Company's collapse, Harriman continued to grow, although its growth was very gradual. The American Temperance University was established in 1894, and operated out of the East Tennessee Land Company's abandoned headquarters. In 1929, the combination of the stock market crash and a devastating flood of the Emory River wiped out much of the city's industry. A paper mill and two hosiery mills provided the largest share of jobs in the city through the rest of the twentieth century, with the paper mill (a Mead Corporation property) and the hosiery companies (Harriman Hosiery, formerly a Burlington Corp. plant, and independent Roane Hosiery) operating into the 1980s. The city got a boost in the 1940s and 1950s from heavy automobile traffic along US 27, which was a primary route connecting the Great Lakes region with Florida before I-75 was completed. The routing of Interstate 40 through southwestern Harriman connected the community more closely with Knoxville but never produced the kind of modern industrial development inside the town that community leaders expected. ** The city, still quaint but clearly different now from its economic heyday, still shows considerable evidence of being a "planned community". Its streets still remain in its original grid pattern, as the collapse of the East Tennessee Land Company in 1893 "froze" the city in its original developmental state. There remains a considerable number of homes—especially in Cornstalk Heights—displaying Victorian architecture as well—many of which have been either painstakingly maintained or restored. The Temperance heritage was slow to depart. There was no liquor store in Harriman until 1992. * Dixie Lee, the first wife of Bing Crosby and a singer and actress herself, was born in Harriman. * Harriman has a bit of amenities to offer. It has dollar stores, a showcase theater, Kroger, Lowe's Home Improvement, a bit of local restaurants and businesses, a bit of public battle fields, a sports complex, Walgreens, an AT&T store, Ruby Tuesday, Shoney's, a bit of hotels, a bit of fast food, a few auto parts places and car dealerships, Food City, Anytime Fitness, Los Primos Authentic Mexican Cuisine, Emory Golf & Country Club, Zaxby's, and a few other things. Category:Tennessee Cities